The gold standard: Prepping for the Olympics

India may win a medal on Day One of the Tokyo Olympics, and that’s not pre-Games optimism talking.

Consider the person in action on July 24. Early in the morning, India time, weightlifter Mirabai Chanu will attempt to win her first Olympic medal. With the usual caveat that an Olympic medal is won or lost on the day, Chanu’s chances are dazzlingly bright. She is the first Indian to win a world championship since Karnam Malleswari in 1995, with a gap of more than two decades between the two golds.

Malleswari went on to become the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Olympics, with her bronze in 2000 in Sydney. But note the five-year gap between her best performance at the world’s and her Olympic medal. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, when Malleswari was at the peak of her powers, weightlifting was still a men-only affair at the Olympics.

Chanu will not have that disadvantage. She won her world title in 2017, and has been constantly improving since, bettering her own personal best (and the national record) twice in the last two years and setting a world mark in overall weight lifted this year. She is also the World No. 1 in her weight class, which makes her the first Indian weightlifter to be world’s best going into an Olympics.

So it’s optimism backed by cold logic and hard facts. At no other time in India’s weary history at the Olympics have there been more Indians ranked within the global top 3 in their sports going into the Games. This is the first time we can hope for a spread of medals based on more than just emotion.

The boxer Amit Panghal is World No. 1 and the top seed for Tokyo, a first for an Indian boxer.

The wrestler Vinesh Phogat is World No. 1 and the top seed for Tokyo, a first for an Indian wrestler.

Bajrang Punia will go into the Olympics as the world’s top-ranked wrestler in his category, having dominated his field in Asia and won medals at the last two world championships.

Of the nine people in India’s shooting contingent, seven are ranked in the top 3 in their categories, two are World No. 1, and the pair of Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker have won every World Cup gold except one since the new mixed pistol pair category was introduced in shooting in 2019.

In fact, India won more medals in the 2019 World Cup cycle than powerhouses such as Russia and China in shooting, an unprecedented feat (the 2020 cycle was sunk by the pandemic).

Archer Deepika Kumari will also go into the Olympics as the World No. 1, but because the Indian women’s recurve team failed to make the cut for Tokyo, her opportunity for a medal will be restricted to the individual event and the newly introduced mixed team, where she will pair up with husband Atanu Das. Going by the couple’s recent performances, a mixed team medal is a real possibility.

In track and field too, India has a rare chance at a medal. Neeraj Chopra’s Olympic preparations may have been blighted by a lack of competitions due to poor planning, but he has recorded the fourth-best throw in the world this season, breaking his own national record. He is a whisker away from a podium finish.

What about the rest of the India contingent?

PV Sindhu may have slipped from the top 3 world rankings, but she remains the defending world champion and having made the world championships final three years in a row now, it’s become clear just how gigantic her big-game temperament can be. It may help that her fiercest rival, Carolina Marin, who beat her to the Olympic gold in Rio, will not be in Tokyo, as a result of an ACL (knee) injury.

Beyond the obsessive quest for medals, there are also the wonderful sporting stories of transformation and of beating the odds. Take Simranjit Kaur, a boxer from a village called Chakar near Ludhiana in Punjab, once infamous for drugs and violence, where a boxing gym began to effect deep social change. Kaur will be the first person from Chakar to compete at the Olympics; she is also the only Indian woman boxer who is seeded (4th) at Tokyo. (Speaking of women boxers, seeded or not, discount the legendary Mary Kom at your own peril.)

Nethra Kumanan, the first woman sailor from India to qualify for the Games, is set to hit the waves of Tokyo Bay. There are the lightning strikes of Bhavani Devi, the first Indian to qualify for a fencing event at the Olympics, rising out of nowhere in a country that has neither a culture nor the infrastructure for the sport.

Five years ago, India returned from Rio with just two medals. That was business as usual. Tokyo offers the first real chance to break that mould.

INDIA SHINING BRIGHT

(Mohit Suneja)

Bajrang Punia, 27

Wrestling, 65kg Freestyle; world ranking 1

(Gold, 2018 Asian Games; silver, 2018 World Championships; bronze, 2019 World Championships)

A wrestler who loves the big stage, there’s no major tournament in the last three years where Punia has not won a medal.

He is the complete package: power, speed, and skills. Injury free and with lengthy training stints in the US and in various European nations with a strong wrestling culture ahead of the Olympics, Punia is in the shape of his life.

(Mohit Suneja)

Vinesh Phogat, 26

Wrestling, 53kg Freestyle; world ranking 1

(Gold, 2021 Asian Championships; gold, 2018 Asian Games; bronze, 2019 World Championships)

She left Rio in tears, a career-threatening knee injury ending her Olympic dreams that year. The surgery and rehab that followed took a long and gritty path, but when she came back, she was better than ever. She is unbeaten this year, with golds in every tournament in the lead up to the Olympics, including at the Asian Championships.

(Mohit Suneja)

Amit Panghal, 25

Boxing, 52kg Flyweight; world ranking 1

(Gold, 2018 Asian Games; silver, 2019 World Championships)

In a short span of three years, Panghal has gone from rookie boxer to world beater and top Olympics contender. The only Indian boxer ever to reach the finals of a world championship, Panghal goes into Tokyo seeded No 1 in his weight, which means the Olympic gold is his to lose. Supremely fit, Panghal has been acquiring skills at a devastating pace.

(Mohit Suneja)

MC Mary Kom, 38

Boxing, 51kg Flyweight; world ranking 3

(Gold, 2018 World Championships; silver, 2021 Asian Championships; bronze, 2012 London Olympics)

She is less boxer, more legend now. At 38, Kom may have lost out on speed and reflexes, but she continues to be as fiercely competitive as ever and when you are a six-time world champion and India’s only female boxer to win an Olympic medal, you know better than anyone exactly how to add one more big one to that already overflowing trophy cabinet.

(Mohit Suneja)

Saurabh Chaudhary, 19

10m Air Pistol; world ranking 2

(Gold, 2018 Asian Games; silver, 2019 Asian Championships)

At 19, he has won 10 World Cup medals, including eight gold, shot world record scores in both junior and senior competitions and was only recently upstaged from the top rank by compatriot Abhishek Verma (who will also be at the Olympics). Chaudhary and teenager Manu Bhaker also form the world’s leading mixed team pair.

(Mohit Suneja)

Elevenil Valarivan, 21

10m Air Rifle; world ranking 1

(Gold, 2019 ISSF World Cup Finals; silver, 2018 World Championships)

Mentored by London Olympics bronze medallist Gagan Narang, Valarivan has made it to the Tokyo Olympics team because of her high level of consistency at the world stage, replacing quota winner Anjum Moudgil in the 10m air rifle individual event. The current world No 1 was a sensation in her junior years on the global stage and has now transitioned smoothly to the senior level.

(Mohit Suneja)

Divyansh Singh Panwar, 18

10m Air Rifle; world ranking 2

Introduced to sport shooting by his parents as a way of breaking the teenager’s obsession with first-person shooter games, Panwar seems to have transferred his gaming skills into real-life talent. In 2019, he swept through the world cup cycle with four golds, a silver and a bronze out of six tournaments. He has a legacy to uphold—India’s only individual gold at the Olympics came in this event, when Abhinav Bindra won it in 2008. But Panwar is also one half of a formidable mixed pair with women’s world No 2 Anjum Moudgil.

Manu Bhaker, 19

10m Air Pistol; world ranking 2

(Gold, ISSF World Cup Final, individual and mixed team; gold, 2019 Asian Championships; gold, 2018 Commonwealth Games)

Another teenage sensation in an Indian shooting contingent full of young debutants at the Olympics, Bhaker is nearly unbeatable in her event at big competitions. Partnering with Saurabh Chaudhary, she will also be competing in the mixed team event.

(Mohit Suneja)

PV Sindhu, 26

Badminton, women’s singles; world ranking 7

(Gold, 2019 World Championships; silver, 2016 Rio Olympics; silver, 2018 Asian Games)

The reigning badminton world champion, Sindhu has been amazingly consistent in major badminton tournaments. She won a silver at the Rio Olympics and has since made the finals of all three world championships (2017-2019). On the biggest stages she becomes a colossus.

(Mohit Suneja)

Neeraj Chopra; 23

Men’s Javelin; world ranking 4

(Gold, 2018 Asian Games; gold, 2018 Commonwealth Games)

Personal Best – 88.07 metres

2016 Rio medal distances: 90.3, 88.24, 85.38

Having burst onto the scene in 2016 with a junior world championship title, the javelin thrower, India’s first global track & field star in decades, has had a poor build up to the Olympics. Yet he remains one of the world’s top throwers, and with a 88.06 metre throw that won him the 2018 Asian Games gold and a 88.07 m throw at Indian GP this year, he is inching closer to that elusive 90 m mark that only one man in the world, Germany’s Johannes Vetter, hits right now.

.GLOBAL STARS TO WATCH

(Mohit Suneja)

Simone Biles; gymnast; USA

Every so often an athlete comes around who makes an Olympics their own. Biles, 24, pushes the limits of what was thought humanly possible — as runner Usain Bolt and swimmer Michael Phelps both did at Beijing and in London in 2008 and 2012. Barring an injury, Tokyo will belong to Biles, who does things on the gymnastics floor and beam that no one had even thought doable.

(Mohit Suneja)

Megan Rapinoe; captain, women’s soccer team; USA

The two-time World Cup winner and 2012 Olympic gold medallist leads a US team unmatched in its dominance. They play a flowing, attacking brand of football that is a joy to watch. Rapinoe, 36, is also a powerful force off the field. In addition to aligning with fights for gender and LGBTQ equality as well as the Black Lives Matter movement, she has been leading a battle for equal pay for the US women’s football team, which brings in more trophies but earns far less than the men’s team.

(Mohit Suneja)

Karsten Warholm; 400m hurdler; Norway

The Norwegian hurdler broke one of the longest-standing records in athletics a month ago: American Kevin Young’s 400m hurdles mark set in 1992. “It might take another world record to win the Olympics,” Warholm said after the race. He could be right. The 400m hurdles line-up at Tokyo will feature the only three men to have run the race below the mythical 47-second barrier: Warholm (46.7; world record), American Rai Benjamin (46.83) and Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba (46.98).

(Mohit Suneja)

Novak Djokovic; tennis; Serbia

The World No. 1 drew even with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as the men with the most Grand Slams (an incredible 20 each) at Wimbledon this month. He’s in fearsome form and has already swept the first three Grand Slams of the year. If the 34-year-old wins an Olympic gold (which he looks set to do) and the US Open, he would become only the second player in history, after Steffi Graf, to win the Golden Slam — all four Slams plus an Olympic gold in the same calendar year.

(Mohit Suneja)

Armand Duplantis; pole vaulter; Sweden

The 21-year-old has taken pole-vaulting by storm. Last year, he broke the legendary Sergey Bubka’s record for outdoor vault, a record that had stood for 26 years, by soaring 20 feet and 2 inches. Duplantis also holds the world record for indoor vault, a record he has bettered twice in 2020. He’s expected to better his outdoor record in Tokyo.

(Text by Avishek Roy and Rutvick Mehta)

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